FOREIGN DEVILS IN THE FLOWERY KINGDOM

I liked this better than anything Carl Crow has done since the memorable 100,000,000 Customers. It is good escape reading in a troubled world, for the story of foreigners in China closes with the Japanese attack on Shanghai. Through the pages one gets an intimate picture of the life a foreigner leads, of the hundred and one facets to the relations between the Westerners and the Orientals, from Marco Polo to modern real estate brokers and business men. A miscellany of business experiences, of trade history, of adventurers, gamblers, diplomats, waifs and strays. There is a real tribute paid to the missionaries of the established mission field -- and unveiled criticism of the bigotry and narrowness of some of the independents. There is plenty of data on the characteristic features of life in the Orient, on the misuse made of privileges by foreigners, of the mutual racial problems. And in the end his opinion can be summed up as agreement with the saying, -- ""John Chinaman is not only a gentleman and a scholar, but a very brave man."" There are anecdotes galore, there is humor, there is serious analysis. I found it grand reading, both from the travel and the human interest angles.